


The Hero Engineer

by ChainSmokesPens



Category: Original Work
Genre: Flash Fic, Superheroes, Supervillains, Urban Fantasy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-15 23:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28572609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChainSmokesPens/pseuds/ChainSmokesPens
Summary: [WP] Everyone is born with a power. Your power is having the average strength of all the humans on earth. You were weak at first but now that the villains are wreaking havoc, with the weaker population are either dying or trained to their limits, you find the average getting higher and higher.





	The Hero Engineer

Hello. Hello?

Is the sound not coming in?

No, I know we have visuals, but do we have audio?

We do? We're all go then?

Great.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Desmond Alphonso Draymond. I am the chief architect of the ARK Tower, currently housing what I believe to be approximately two billion human refugees.

Times were dark even before I was born. Even before the awakening. Before caped crusaders and gentleman villains zipped through the air spreading wanton chaos and destruction at an unprecedented scale, the world was already rife with conflict, turmoil, and suffering. I learned these things in my studies, which helped steel my resolve to completing this marvel of infrastructure.

Like I said, the ARK Tower should be housing two billion of you at the moment, waiting patiently for the conflict outside to come to an end. Whether that conflict is a nuclear apocalypse, a mass genocide, a virulent pandemic, or an alien invasion I assure you that as long as these walls stand nothing can breach further than the dust on the tower's adamantine surface.

It was designed specifically to house you, after all.

I've dreamed of this since I was a boy.

Truth be told, we didn't know what my power was as a child. It took years of physical therapy, prescription medications and supplements, and the eventual consultation of a seer to determine that my ability was the base average strength of every human on the planet.

Needless to say, I was depressed. My mother could control great conflagrations and served her country with fire-prevention measures. My father was a lunamancer and began leading journeys into the virgin reaches of space. And I was little Desmond, cursed by my own mediocrity.

I was in a funk throughout all of middle school, as I'm sure most of you can relate to. But, on my fifteenth birthday, I received the most precious gift of all. The gift of an epiphany.

You see, World War III happened. That three months seemed to pass within an instant, but the effects of that tragedy would last for a lifetime. Five hundred million lives were lost, excluding the soldiers who fought.

I woke up the morning of my birthday to find that I was healthier. That I was stronger, faster, even a little taller. And, as governments around the globe began to optimize their military programs and train their soldiers to reach their full potential, my power would continue to grow before stabilizing again within the next decade.

I knew then, as I know now, what I had to do.

It took decades of academic studies, three selective marriage arrangements, dozens of trillions of dollars of construction work from every country in the world, Machiavellian suggestions to the United Nations, chess-like societal manipulation via social media, and, eventually, faking my own death to reach this point.

I don't know what is happening outside, but I know that you are all heroes in your own right. You elderly, you infirmed, you children, you impoverished, you unintelligent.

All of you, approximately two billion of you, almost a third of the world's population are some of the weakest members of society in the world.

Those fighting outside are worried about having their strength overtaken.

Little do they know, I've overtaken their weakness.

As I've alluded to, I'm not dead, but cryogenically frozen beneath this tower. Once a certain weight is reached, the sensors throughout the ARK Tower will reach my cellar and begin defrosting me. After which, I will allow this video to play to it's full length, before detonating the building.

Yes, nothing can reach it from the outside. Implosions are a different story.

Those of you who don't die in the fire with me crushed by the rubble. Afterwards, I should be strong enough to dig my way out and swim back to the mainland. Furthermore, whatever heroes may be guarding this facility from the outside will have to take the blame for this catastrophe.

Through your deaths, you have raised the average human strength. You have made my strength. Please, if you haven't already, sign your names on the keypads in your rooms. The data will be transferred directly into my brain so that I'll never forget you.

Sweet dreams.


End file.
